


Pneuma

by setos_puppy



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Kink Bingo 2011
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-04 02:15:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6636997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/setos_puppy/pseuds/setos_puppy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of his garbled streams of conciousness</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pneuma

**Author's Note:**

  * For [1001cranes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1001cranes/gifts).



> Originally written for the 2011 Kink Bingo for the Anonymity Square

He had been Karl William Kraft once upon a time. 

Born of a deadbeat father and a mother who died in labour. His life was average, surprisingly suburban. He had never wet the bed or killed puppies or started fires. His more... animalistic side didn't show itself until he had just started college. He met Nita Walsh there. She had spurned him. He had gotten angry. Kidnapping, torture and attempted murder aside, he actually really liked her.

The Karl was gone. He had been scooped out and hollowed into nothing. He had been simple. He had been blissful. He had become Alpha. 

He ate, he slept, he drew, he did yoga. Sometimes he went swimming. Sometimes he climbed the rock wall. 

He went on engagements.

Then he was someone else. Everyone else. Anyone else. 

Sometimes he was a spy. Sometimes he was a gentleman. One time he even liked to wear women's underwear. He liked to hurt people sometimes, too. Pull them and squish them. See their insides on the outside. 

He was gay. He was straight. He was neither. He was both.

He was Stephen, Doug, Alex, Michael, Jordan...

Then with a flash and a zip and agonizing, searing, blinding, spine-locking pain he was nothing. He was empty. He could remember days of the week, and counting, and the alphabet, but he had no history. He had no personality. 

He would open his eyes, dazed and confused, lost, empty, stolen, sad, angry....

“Did I fall asleep?”

Searching for answers. Feeling like he had forgotten about forgetting something. His mind was swiss cheese and he couldn't remember despite grasping at straws. 

He started to piece things together. 

He didn't know how. Just flashes of things would make sense and not make sense. Feelings that he thought he should know. Places and dates and times and faces. It gave him headaches. He pretended they didn't happen.

Then _she_ came. Caroline – Echo – her. 

She was beautiful and real and then they scooped out her insides like pumpkin guts and she was blank like him. More blank. He wanted her. Wanted her like he had wanted Nita. Like the person he had been before. The person he had forgotten. Who no longer existed. 

He went for it. Tried for her. 

Failure. 

Then they tried to fix him. Tried to blot him out. Then there was too much. Too many names and dates and faces. People that didn't fit inside of him. They were stretched too thin to fit or jammed in to try and squeeze inside. None of them slotted inside of him. None of them fit without jagged edges being left behind. 

There were days when he tried to remember the person inside of the broken wedge. Filled himself with a longing sadness of the life he had once had and destroyed. They were fleeting and far between. 

Instead there were victorious days of being everyone. Anyone. Someone different. Of being Jeffery's husband or Lisa's boyfriend. 

Of being nothing. 

Of being a blank canvas ready for paint. 

He liked those days most of all.


End file.
